Raw faith

Enter Elijah.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.”  1 Kings 17:1

And it was so.

God provided for his man Elijah with water from a brook and ravens to supply him with food – bread and meat morning and evening.

And when the brook dries up, God sends Elijah to Zarephath to find a widow who will supply him with food.

This widow seems to be a poor choice. She only has enough oil and flour left for one more meal and is collecting sticks for a fire to prepare this meal before she and her son will die.

However, she has no need to be afraid. God will provide.

‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the land.’  1 Kings 17:14

She has to trust the words of Elijah and the promise of God by making him food first before feeding herself and her son. This is faith in action. Giving away your last food seems foolish in human eyes and goes against every survival instinct. But she is a woman of faith. And God provides for Elijah and the widow and her family every day.

Until….some time later…..

Some time later the son of the woman who owned the house became ill. He grew worse and worse, and finally stopped breathing. She said to Elijah, “What do you have against me, man of God? Did you come to remind me of my sin and kill my son?”  1 Kings 17:17-18

The widow blames Elijah. Of course she does. He is the obvious one to blame. Weird things have been happening since he arrived – albeit good weird things – and now it is payback time. It must have all seemed too good to be true – and this has proved it was.

Even Elijah himself is struggling to make sense of it all –

“Lord my God, have you brought tragedy even on this widow I am staying with, by causing her son to die?” Then he stretched himself out on the boy three times and cried out to the Lord, “Lord my God, let this boy’s life return to him!”  1 Kings 17:20-21

God heard Elijah’s cry. He brought the boy back to life. Elijah returned the boy alive to his mother.

Then the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.”  1 Kings 17:24

 

This passage is all about faith. Faith in the hardest of situations. Elijah speaks God’s truth and then has to trust that God will provide the food and water that he needs……by waiting for the ravens to arrive every day; by trusting God has an alternative when the brook dries up; by believing God knows best when He sends him to a widow with no food; by trusting each day the oil and flour will never run out; by crying out to God and believing He will hear; by asking for the impossible and believing in God’s resurrection power. The widow has to trust Elijah and make him his meal first. Her faith is then tested when her son becomes ill. She has seen God at work, but when her son falls ill, her faith wavers. It is restored of course when God works mightily to bring her son back to life.

This is raw faith.

Faith when you literally don’t know where your next meal is coming from.

Faith when your son becomes ill and dies.

Faith when you are called upon to provide for and support others.

Faith when you are asked to pray for others.

 

We have a pretty comfortable faith, don’t we? A faith that is not really tested in these ways very often. It’s easy to talk the talk and profess our faith in a loving God when we have everything that we need. It’s easy to assert that God is love, that God will provide, that God hears our prayers, that God is for us and with us then.

But what happens when we are desperate?

What happens when our teenager is in hospital with alcohol poisoning?

When our partner leaves us?

When we have no money to pay the bills?

When we are crying out for an end to our mental torment?

When we are waiting for life and death test results?

How is our faith then?

Can we still say that God is love?

Are we still sure that God will provide?

Do we believe that God will hear our prayers?

Do we know deep down without a shadow of a doubt that God is with us and for us?

 

As I have said before, God does not have to prove Himself to us by what He does in our lives. He is love and He is there and He does provide and He does keep his promises. Full stop. It’s up to us to develop a faith that believes all of those affirmations without being dependent on our situation in the moment. We will not always understand how God is working or why He is working the way He is. But He is still God.

My faith has not been shaken to its core by personal tragedy or desperate need. I know I am fortunate in that and I do not take that for granted. And so it is easy for me to pontificate on all of this, I guess.

But I know that I am not good at praying for the impossible and believing in the impossible. That is my personal challenge for today.

God is at work in us
His purpose to perform
Building a kingdom
Of power not of words
Where things impossible
By faith shall be made possible
Let’s give the glory
To Him now.  (Rejoice, rejoice – Graham Kendrick)